Daniel 12:7
“I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it will be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished.”
What does Daniel 12:7 mean?
In this vision near the end of Daniel's book, an angel swears an oath about the duration of a period of suffering and persecution. The "time, times, and a half" (roughly three and a half years or periods) appears throughout Daniel as a symbol of intense but limited oppression. The key promise here is that this suffering will end, not go on forever. What makes this meaningful is the structure of the oath itself. The angel raises both hands to heaven to emphasize the certainty of God's word, swearing by the eternal God who cannot lie. For people experiencing genuine hardship, this gesture says: God is making you a binding promise that your current season of difficulty has an expiration date. The power arrayed against God's people will be broken, and these trials will be finished. It's both a realistic acknowledgment that hard times come, and an unshakeable confidence that they don't last forever.